By Suzanna McLeod
Special to Ontario Construction News
Kaboom! The ground shakes and sound waves reverberate for kilometres. Rock and debris are shattered and dislodged, ready to scoop out of the defined construction site.
A technique used worldwide, the art of blasting is standard in the industry to detonate rock for highway and building construction, to demolish buildings, and raze other structures. The history of explosives dates back to Europe four hundred years ago. Manufacturing blasting powder in Ontario, the Hamilton Powder Company opened in early the 1860s. The firm transformed into Canadian Industries Limited, known as CIL.
Black powder blasting for mining was used in Hungary in the early 1600s, and later for tunnel construction in France. In 1867, Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) improved on nitroglycerin discovered by Ascanio Sobrero in 1846. Nobel devised a formula for mixing the oily nitroglycerin fluid with kieselguhr, a form of diatomaceous earth, to create a paste. “This material could be kneaded and shaped into rods suitable for insertion into drilling holes,” said Noble Prize in “Nitroglycerine and Dynamite.”
Calling his invention ‘dynamite,’ Nobel “went on to develop a blasting cap which could be used to detonate dynamite under controlled conditions.” He was “the first to produce nitroglycerine on an industrial scale.” (The Nobel Prize was established from a foundation created in Alfred Nobel’s will, honouring those creating the greatest benefits to humankind.)
Hamilton Powder Company opened in 1862 to manufacture black powder for railway construction. The firm won a government contract in 1877 to provide blasting material “to enable the railway’s perilous crossing of the Rocky Mountains in 1884 and 1885,” stated François Larivée at Library and Archives Canada in “CIL: The story of a brand.”
Moving the head office to Montreal, the company also built a dynamite factory at McMasterville, Quebec, east of the city. Hamilton Powder Company acquired other black powder plants in the Maritimes, Quebec, and British Columbia.
Joining with Dominion Cartridge Company in 1910, Hamilton Powder Company took five more explosives companies under its umbrella—Acadia Powder Company, Ontario Powder Company, Standard Explosives company, Western Explosives Company, and Victoria Chemical Company. Changing the name to Canadian Explosives Limited (CXL), the new entity was owned by Nobel with 55% of shares, and DuPont holding 45%.
“The new company was a major explosives manufacturer during the First World War, serving Canadian and allied forces,” said Sasha Yusufali and Eli Yarhi in The Canadian Encyclopedia, edited July 17, 2017.
Continuing to expand, the manufacturer acquired several subsidiaries of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and added new products of paint and varnish to the agenda. Investing in research and development, CXL constructed a central laboratory at McMasterville in 1916. The town “was named after William McMaster, first chairman of the Canadian Explosives Company in 1910,” said Larivée. A ‘boom’ in business lay ahead in the next several decades; in 1927, CXL became Canadian Industries Limited — CIL.
Opening a dynamite plant at Nobel, Ontario during the war, CXL expanded the factory on Georgian Bay during the Second World War, establishing Defence Industries Limited (DIL). Working in shifts, DIL workers produced “cordite, guncotton, and TNT,” wrote John Macfie in Parry Sound North Star, September 1, 2016. During peak production, the “plant’s workforce approached 1,000 people.” A large number of men were on war duty, so women filled the vacant jobs, even if dangerous.
The CIL subsidiary manufactured chemical products and explosives for military service. Plants across Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba produced ammunition with the labour of over 32,000 workers, and by 1943, most of the workers were women. An antitrust lawsuit in the USA broke up the massive CIL company, with Imperial Chemical Industries acquiring several CIL operations. DuPont of Canada retained the rest.
Manufacturing explosive materials as its main moneymaker, CIL’s products assisted with mining construction projects “in Sudbury, Elliot Lake, Thompson, Matagami and Murdochville,” noted Larivée, and for “hydroelectric projects in Manicouagan, Niagara and Churchill Falls.” CIL explosives also cleared obstacles for St. Lawrence Seaway construction and portions of the Trans-Canada highway.
While CIL took necessary safety precautions, accidents still shook the company and employees. Among several catastrophic events, in early October 1975, a disastrous explosion at the McMasterville plant injured dozens and killed six workers. Occurring around 8 pm, “the blast blew out windows within five miles (8 kms),” according to The New York Times. A company representative stated that “the building in which it occurred was used for the manufacture of an explosive called cap-sensitive slurries, ‘one of the new generation of explosives.’”
In 1981, CIL moved its head office to Toronto, and transferred the research facility to Mississauga, mentioned Larivée. The McMasterville explosives plant “gradually reduced its production before closing for good in 2000.” Becoming a subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries, CIL was acquired by AkzoNobel in 2008, with emphasis on paint and coatings
© 2023 Susanna McLeod. McLeod is a Kingston-based freelance writer who specializes in Canadian History.